Collect Letters From The Land Of Cancer Presented By Walter Wangerin Jr. Depicted In Physical Book

Walt was diagnosed with cancer, he processed the news with friends and family through letters.
This book is the collection of the letters he wrote over the course ofish months.
It was fine enough, but I struggle with making "personal" letters to friends and family public.
In Letters from the Land of Cancer, awardwinning writer Walter Wangerin Jr, offers his profound insights into the greatest challenge we face: confronting our own mortality, "Shortly after the cancer had been diagnosed I began writing letters to the members of my immediate family, to relatives and to lifelong friends.
The following book will consist mostly of those letters, They will invite you into my most intimate dancing with the cancer, even as that partner and I have over the last two years swung each other around the tiled floors of ballrooms and bathrooms.
Dizzy still, and day by day, I sat and wrote: This is what I'm feeling right now.
This is what I think, " From afternoon to afternoon of radiation, Wangerin wrote about confronting his mortality, about living with the messiness of undone tasks and bodily weakness.
He wrote about the medical procedures he endured, the wild mood swings that unbalanced his days, and the fragilities and strengths of the relationships that surrounded him.
Letters from the Land of Cancer is made up of these writings, Cadenced within the letters are Wangerin's eloquent meditations derived from his pastoral experiences with the faithful passage of death to life.
Seldom has the great adventure of life and death been as beautifully presented as it is in this testimony to faith, love, and the shocking reality of hope.
Personal and forthright.

I'm not a religious sort, and I'm generally not a fan of poetry, so whether on the spiritual or literary planes, any Biblical verses Mr.
Wangerin cited were pretty lost on me, However, they could be precisely what another reader might like best,

I found that I skipped the meditations and focused on the letters, The letter on pain "I contain pain, " is the most memorable. Other standouts: how some of his human frailties i, e. , flashes of anger emerged at different times his description of trying to get air his sense of Time and paying attention and his close examination of his grandchildren's hands.


The ending disconcerted me its abruptness contrasted sharply with the careful thoughtfulness of all that preceded it.


For such a small book, it is meaty, and I recommend it, I found this book at my public library while looking for another title, It is a memoir writtenin letters to friends and family, It begins with the diagnosis of lung cancer, concludes at a period of remission,

I read this at the end of, Before I had read two chapters, I had to know Wangerin's fate how comforting to discover he lives! He used to be a pastor, then taught

writing at Valparaiso University.


He asks quirky questions: Why does cancer have to be a battle How is it heroic He explains why he doesn't pray for his own healing.
As a writer, he has to prioritize which projects to complete, which ones to set aside.
One letter details how he views death, He incidentally quotes two writers whose names always remind me I want to learn more: Jaroslav Pelikan and Jeremy Taylor.


A quote, so appropriate for those contemplating retirement:

Ah, but as long as I make commitments to othersto teach, to sustain, to befriend, to love: as long as I willingly and knowingly schedule new commitments, I have no right to selfpity.
My project, then. To get good and old, Spiritually to approach my losses with the same craft and talent and devotion which I bring to the writing of a novel, a poem, a sermon.


I appreciate this book, While I don't agree with some of his assumptions, he challenged my thinking, I have a visceral loathing for cremation but an almost equally strong opposition to embalming, I found Walter's explanation of how he wanted to be cremated and the ashes buried, not scattered, plausible, which is a first.
Read in two days. On my must read before you die list! If ever someone is suffering, I'm going to give them that book! Whether it be cancer or any type of severe suffering, this is now my top book to help people understand God and suffering.


of my topbooks of, The others are:

sitelinkThe Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks

sitelinkHammer of God

sitelinkThe Invisible Wall: A Love Story That Broke Barriers

TamaraJacks This is a beautifully written and honest collection of letters and reflections from a prolific author on his experience with the cancer that will one day kill him.
Wangerin is a Lutheran pastor and professor at Valparaiso University, His writing weaves together faith and frailty, detailed accounts both of the decline of his body and the acuity of his spiritual journey throughout.

The bulk of the writing is group letters sent to family and friends, A few letters never sent are included, as well as half a dozen interlude reflections,
The first thing I noticed was that the letters began in December, but the book cover mentions Wangerin as living this was just published.
So, the effect is that of reading someone who is wrestling with their approaching death while all along knowing that he will survive at least four more years.

There are many profound thoughts along the way, Just to give one example, Wangerin wonders why we limit the experience of living with and often dying from cancer by resorting to battle language: fight, battled, lost, victorious, etc.
Likewise, his poetic pondering on how resurrection takes shape is stunning,
As a future pastor, I found myself marking several places in this book where powerful sermon material may be drawn.

Inspirational. I related to so much of what he wrote, and yet he wrote it in such an intellectual manner.
Inspiring me to update my blog! Wangerin is an amazing man, Very few of us would be able to share such intimate parts of their life, And that is what makes this book so good, Wangerin is living the last part of his life and he is willing to share it all with his readers.
There are now many more things I understand about the land of cancer,

For two years, Walter Wangerin wrote to friends and family about his terminal illness, lung cancer.
We are blessed that he is willing to share these letters and his faith in God with the outside world.
I am so grateful. Chronicles the progression of his disease, Brave and sad. I listened to the audio version of this, read by the author, It's a collection of letters to friends and family that were written while Wangerin was receiving treatments for lung cancer.
It was meaningful to me because I have a friend who's dying of cancer right now and unwilling to talk about his impending death, so I looked to Wangerin to have those "discussions" with me.
His letters are honest and he faces his death with true courage, Wangerin's hope is in Christ's resurrection and he feels no need to desperately cling to a few more months or years on this earth.
Some would find the letters depressing, but I actually found them encouraging and hopeful,

And spoiler alert: I just Googled Wangerin and apparently he's still alive at, I didn't give this rating, It is very well written and powerful, It just didn't feel right to say I enjoyed it, Powerfully written and honest. My favorite parts of this book

Virginia, my elegant mother, lays her cheek against mine and sings:

I am Jesus' little lamb,
Ever glad at heart I am.

For my Shepherd gently guides me,
Knows my need and well provides me,
Loves me every day the same,
Even calls me by my name.

Day by day, at home, away,
Jesus is my Staff and Stay,
When I hunger, Jesus feeds me,
Into pleasant pastures leads me
When I thirst, He bids me go
Where the quiet waters flow.

Who so happy as I am,
Even now the Shepherd's lamb
And when my short life is ended,
By His angel host attended,
He shall fold me to His breast,
There within His arms to rest.


Henriette L. von Hayn

This is the closest I come to a word regarding my healing: a declaration that in the end it will surely come.
But I am consoled, my dear wife, by your persistent praying,
Why can't I bring myself to pray for my own healing Well, it seems a bit presumptuous.

Not that I don't believe in the prayer's effect, I've prayed the same prayer for others, with neither hesitation nor skepticism, . .
Well, perhaps this is a genuine explanation: I don't fear death, I am peaceful in my present state, I feel no urgency for change, Why pray for one particular outcome when whatever God chooses for me is altogether fine by me.
.

Look: Shadrach, Meshach and Abedego, just before Nebuchadezzar threw them into the fiery furnace, made a statement of faith so magnificent that I don't think there was another such until Jesus himself lived out the same faith.

Nebuchadnezzar in furious rage commanded that they be brought in,
"Now, if you are ready to fall down and worship the statue that I have made, well and good.
But if you do not worship, you shall immediately be thrown into a furnace of blazing fire, and who is the god that will deliver you out of my hands"
They said, "We have no need to present a defense to you.
If our God whom we serve is able to deliver us from the furnace of blazing fire and out of your hand, O king, let him deliver us.
But if not, be it known to you that we will not serve your gods and we will not worship the golden statue that you have set up.
"

Even if God gives them no sign at all, yet they will obey him!
Whichever the case, the three young men will not break their faith.
Whether they live or whether they die, it is all one with them,
Even if my God should take no extraordinary measures regarding my life, I am neverthe less at peace.

They didn't pray. Simply, they stuck to the Lord God, He would do as he pleased, God was God however he chose to act,

Likewise Jesus: even hanging on the cross, dying, suffering what seemed the abandonment of his Father, yet he obeyed even unto death.


Why, resting my soul upon the everlasting bosom of my Lord, should I be any different

Christ is altogether more trustworthy than the leaders of this earth are proving themselves to be.
Grief and fear and a pandemic of selfserving behaviors trouble the peoples leaders increase the fear, distort the behaviors, invert righteousness, and their destructions abound.
These things are true. They have been true since we hid from God even if they do seem more extreme in these latter years.


And here, Linda, comes the real source of my peace on the threshold of death.

Watch in this chapter for the relationship between the Holy Shepherd and his flock: John

The sheep hear his voice.
He calls his own sheep by name and leads them out, When he has brought out all his own, he goes ahead of them, and the sheep follow him because they know his voice.
They will not follow a stranger, but they will run from him because they do not know the voice of strangers.
I am the good shepherd, I know my own and my own know me, just as the Father knows me and I know the Father.
And I lay down my life for the sheep, I have other sheep that do not belong to this fold, I must bring them also, and they will listen to my voice, My sheep hear my voice, I know them, and they follow me, I give them eternal life, and they will never perish, No one will snatch them out of my hand, What my Father has given me is greater than all else, and no one can snatch it out of the Father's hand.
The Father and I are one,

And this, finally, is the merciful consequence of the Savior's calling our names, Eternal life!

Linda, how did Jesus raise Lazarus, whom he dearly loved, from the dead He called the dead man by his name! Lazarus!

And how did he revive Mary Magdalene, grieving the death of her whole existence Mary!

So it shall be with me.

The shepherd will come he who leads me out by my name and by the resounding gift of his voice.

And he will say to my dead self: Walter!

And I will be again.


The creating word itself will give me ears to his voice, And a mind of soaring mystery to know it, And I like Lazarus will rise,

I, like Mary Magdalene, will emerge from the death of hopelessness and anguished tears and distress.


"Walter," Jesus will say, and in that instant my soul will know Jesus, that it is he.
And in the light of his familiar voice in the sweet redeclaration of my name I will even know me, who I am, and therefore that I am!

Resurrected, do you see

Right now, therefore, I am to hold lightly both death and life and the life which shall be.

.